2 Iraqi Women Working for U.S. Are Shot to Death in Taxi

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN

Published: March 12, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 11—
A day after two American civilians and their Iraqi translator were killed in a roadside ambush, two Iraqi washerwomen working for American forces were attacked by masked gunmen and shot to death, police officials said Thursday.

Maj. Riyadh Kadhem Jawad of the Iraqi police said the women, who cleaned and ironed clothes for American soldiers in the southern city of Basra, were driving home Wednesday night in a taxi when four gunmen surrounded their car, ordered the taxi driver out and then shot the women.

''The driver thought the attackers were looters,'' Major Jawad said. ''He told them to take the car but not hurt the girls. But they opened fire.'' He addied that they ''shot five bull's-eyes in each girl.''

The women, Liqa Falih, 26, and Shayma Falih, 29, were sisters, authorities said. Shayma was in the front seat. She was shot dead immediately. Liqa was in the back seat and tried to run away. She was shot in the back.

Both worked for Kellogg Brown & Root, a United States contractor providing laundry service to American personnel in Basra. The taxi driver was spared.

The precise nature of the attack has renewed fears that translators and other support staff working for Americans are easy targets, especially women.

''The terrorists are looking for us,'' said Zenab Mohy al-Deen, a 27-year-old Army translator in Baghdad. ''It's terrifying.''

Just two weeks ago in Baghdad another pair of sisters who worked at an Army base were shot on their way home. One lived. One died. Neighbors said they had been threatened by members of Iraq's former rule.

''When they walked down the street, people whispered, 'We will get them, we will get them,' '' said Fazil Massem, a neighbor.

Last week, a translator for Voice of America and his mother-in-law and 4-year-old daughter were killed in Baghdad while driving in his car. In January, three other washerwomen, who worked at an Army base in western Iraq, were followed on their way to work and shot to death by gunmen in a passing car.

Working with Americans, even for those not connected to the occupation government, has become dangerous business.

On Wednesday, a female translator for an American news outlet found a handwritten note under her front door. It began with a traditional opening, ''In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.'' Then it continued this way: ''Those who deal with the atheists and the infidels on the soil of the homeland deserve but death and destruction. Thus, we warn you to stay away from the infidels and the blasphemers, the followers of Satan.''

It was signed ''The Army of Followers.''

The translator left her house.

''We have received several threats,'' said Majid al-Battat, a translator for American forces in Basra. ''We expect to be next.''

Many support staff, women as well as men, now carry guns.

Essra Falih, a sister of the two washerwomen killed on Wednesday, also worked for the Americans cleaning clothes. At least, she did until Thursday.

''I am quitting,'' she said. ''I am the next target.''

Meanwhile, American officials have begun an intensive investigation into the killing of the two American civilians and their translator, who were shot Tuesday on a road near Abu Gharaq, about 70 miles south of Baghdad. American military officials said the three, two of whom were women, were attacked in their car by men wearing police uniforms. They were the first American civilians working for the occupying forces to be killed in Iraq. Two of the three were women. United States officials in Washington and Baghdad on Thursday said that despite earlier rumors, none of the dead Americans worked for the F.B.I.

Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior military commander in Iraq, said Thursday that insurgents posing as police officers could be the manifestation of a new tactic and that ''we are very concerned about it.''

Also on Thursday, military officials said an American soldier was killed and two were wounded when their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb near Baquba, north of Baghdad.

Photo: An Iraqi man mourned on Thursday in the car in which two Iraqi women working for the American occupation had been shot and killed Wednesday night. The gunmen let the women's driver go. (Photo by Agence France-Presse/Getty Images)